by Diane Carey
“We already played that card,” Kirk rejected. “It didn’t work.”
McCoy’s expression hardened. All at once he and Kirk were the only two men in the universe. “Then you’d better make it work. We’re coming into a war zone. You know as well as I do the Federation Council would never have allowed the Expedition to launch if they’d known we were flying into somebody else’s war. My staff and colleagues are unified in the opinion that the Surgeon General of the Federation would not approve forward movement.”
“Doctor, nobody knew there was a war going on!” Pardonnet held out. “Our initial reports were that there was nothing out here. Nothing!”
“That was because there wasn’t anything—yet,” McCoy pointed out. “Then those planets cycled back close to each other, and there’s suddenly a whole new war. Now somebody’s given them warp drive and the cycles don’t matter anymore. This area’s not only a war zone—it’s a war zone forever now. How can we settle a planet, establish a spaceport, and keep the peace when there’s none to be kept? A spaceport in a war zone becomes an instant target. You know that, Jim.”
“Doctor, as usual you’re ignoring the potentialities,” Spock contested. “There is more at stake than this one colony. A considerable investment has been made not just by these people, but by a vast infrastructure back home. Cultures on a thousand planets are watching, betting on success, planning trade and expansion to the Sagittarius Star Cluster based upon the Belle Terre project.” An unexpected defiance came into Spock’s voice. His features gave way to passion of his own. “If the Belle Terre project fails, it may sound the death knell of Federation trade and development for a hundred years. We must not turn back.”
McCoy pointed an accusing finger at him. “It’ll do the same damn thing if they end up dead in somebody else’s war! Better to say, ‘We didn’t make it over the mountain, let’s try again later,’ than have pictures of sixty thousand graves broadcast all over the galaxy. Don’t you think our enemies will use that against us?”
“Our enemies will also see any retreat as squeamishness,” Spock defied. He motioned to Shucorion, standing only a few steps away. “To the Blood and Kauld, we are unknown quantities. The Klingons will not be forgiving of retreat.”
Abandoning him, McCoy crossed to Pardonnet. “Governor, you and these people have enjoyed prosperity and peace all your lives. You don’t really know what a war is like, never mind war in space, with advanced destructive forces on you and on you, again and again, until—”
“Doctor,” Kirk snapped, “leave him alone.”
The doctor pivoted to him. “Jim, you should be explaining this to them! This is exactly why the military goes first into unknown territory, why it’s a mistake to send the families out to carve the paths. You of all people here do know what war is like. Do you want the deaths of sixty thousand civilians on your conscience? Haven’t you had enough death in your career?”
The scornful question, blurted with such vicious concern, got Kirk by the throat. Anger heated his face. Only with great bitterness did he cling to the tiny thread that this was what he counted on McCoy to do, this kind of seething honesty that burned every decision down to its core. Kirk depended upon the doctor’s natural dissent to read the handwriting on every wall.
But McCoy was right—was it Kirk’s responsibility to make sure the colonists stayed alive, or that their dream stayed alive? At this juncture, the two had gone off on forked roads. Was he obliged just to these people, or to the whole Federation and colonies of the future?
What was his job today, different from yesterday? What was his duty?
Just as Kirk parted his tight lips to order the doctor to end this protest, Michael Kilvennan spoke up with a quiet “ ’Scuse me.” When they all turned to him, he submitted, “The real question is, with our barges destroyed, could we even make it all the way back if we turned around? Turning around here is a lot different than turning back two months ago.”
Faltering suddenly, McCoy drew back. That was the real problem. Kirk hadn’t even thought of it, because he hadn’t entertained any ideas about retreat.
Soulsick, Evan Pardonnet gazed at Kilvennan, digesting the impact of those words. If there was no turning back, his noble ideals may have led sixty thousand people to die in space. Body bags. Rows of coffins. Whole families wiped out.
“They’re all looking to me for answers,” he mourned. “I never thought about being stranded in the middle of a conflict. . . . We all wanted so much to come.”
From Pardonnet’s left side, Montgomery Scott gazed down with that sage expression of his, almost a smile, almost a beam, and Kirk saw in Scott’s face the appreciation lauded upon Evan Pardonnet by everyone who listened to him speak of these things. Even the wizened, unpersuadable, untrusting Scott was caught up in the wonder of crazy chances for the right reasons. That sight mellowed Kirk considerably as he watched, and he glanced around at the other people to measure their reactions too.
“I’ve got my flaws, I know,” Pardonnet simmered on. “But I also know in my heart that this is good, it’s best. Best for the whole Federation. Best for the galaxy, the people who aren’t part of the Federation and need to see the possibilities if they get freedom too. How can something that’s best for everybody be so hard to make happen?”
“I think you’ll find that’s usually the case, Evan.” Kirk scanned the people around him, upon whom so much would depend as the Expedition nosed into the unknown.
He turned, so that he was partially facing Shucorion, in order to include him in what was about to be said.
“No matter what tales of hardship confront us,” he said, “we’re going to Belle Terre. It’s important for the Federation that we succeed. We’ve settled hostile space before and dealt with angry cultures and seen good come of it. I believe that more Federation in the galaxy is better than less. I’ve laid my life on the line many times to move the philosophies of freedom and justice forward, and I’ll do it again. I’m asking everyone on this expedition to do it with me. If this attempt fails, the Federation will have a damnable task mustering any others in the future. It’s critical that these people actually get to Belle Terre, and that they live and build. It’s our job to get them there. From now on, we prepare for the worst. Whatever happens, I intend to embrace challenge.”
The bridge fell to its version of silence—a certain pax electrica, lights blinking, circuits beeping softly as they went about their business. Kirk held his position, aware of the effect he had on his little congregation. McCoy relaxed some and clasped his hands. Shucorion was studying him, learning.
Michael Kilvennan stood up and faced Pardonnet. “We’re still with you, Evan. I’m here with my wife, two little kids, my mother and her husband, my sister, my brother, and my shipmates. That’s all I’ve got. That’s everybody who means anything to me. Everybody except you and the captain here. Me, I got nothing to turn back for.”
Pardonnet gazed up at him miserably. “I feel like I painted a picture without any corners. Now we might all fall off the edge.”
Kilvennan bothered to put a hand on the governor’s slumped shoulder. “You never lied to us. Think we’re stupid? We didn’t come because you told stories. We came because we want to make our own stories. You’re so much one who believes in the decisions of individuals, but you sit here trying to make up a decision for all of us, like we’re kids or something. Yeah, maybe we’ll die out here. But maybe we won’t. Captain Kirk’s right. I’m sticking with you, and I’m sticking with him.”
“Michael, are you sure?” Pardonnet beseeched. “Because that means things have to change.”
“I’m sure. Go ahead—change things.”
Taking a grip on Kilvennan’s arm in a gesture of unity, Pardonnet stood up. He drew a long breath, steeled himself, and turned to Kirk.
“There’s a way to defend ourselves, Captain, and it’s somewhere in your mind. If you can figure it out, we’ll do anything you say from now on.”
Deeply touched, K
irk sincerely murmured, “Thank you . . . very much for that. Governor, I can order Starfleet people to face the cannons. I can even order them to die in the line of duty. I can’t order civilians. The only way to do this will be for everyone on this Expedition to become Starfleet. Accept Starfleet officers, use Starfleet weapons, take Starfleet orders without second-guessing. Do everything we say and nothing we don’t. If we’re going to have the freedoms you want, we’ll have to back them up with structure, vigilance, and strength.”
A tall order, he knew. But Evan Pardonnet buried a shudder and put out his hand to grip Kirk’s. He nodded, unable to respond with words, and gave his solemn agreement in front of all these witnesses.
Kirk held the grip a few seconds longer than necessary. Then he faced Kilvennan. “I need to know the privateers agree,” he added.
Kilvennan’s catlike eyes penetrated any lingering gap in their causes. “We’ve seen what you’ll do for us. We’re going on with you. With you.”
Warmed to the core, Kirk found himself controlling a hopeful smile as he turned to the whole bridge complement. “Very well, that’s how it’ll be. We all have new jobs to do. The decision’s been made. All hands . . . carry on.”
Uhura positively beamed with pride. Pardonnet was pale with acceptance. Shucorion lowered his chin, his eyes unreadable. Spock nodded once, and turned back to his station, a longtime cue for everyone else to do the same. Scott snapped his fingers at two completely stunned junior engineers, who flinched and got back to work.
The machine of the Enterprise had just come on line. There would be nothing but toil and wariness from now on.
As the crowd dissipated and the bridge became quiet again, Leonard McCoy folded his arms again, pressed a knee against the rail, and surveyed the man in the middle.
“Wild Bill Hickirk,” he drawled.
Chapter Twenty-two
“EMBRACE THE CHALLENGE . . . embrace it? Why would anyone want challenge? I hate it.”
Grumbling to himself, Shucorion backed deeper into the unused cubicle on the coroner ship Twilight Sentinel. This was the only place he could go in the Expedition and be certain that no one was monitoring him. These cubicles were sacred, he had been told, or private—some kind of meditation place for those who came here to contemplate the dead. He didn’t understand that completely. To honor the dead in his culture, no one would simply sit and think. The only honor was in work, in using the wreckage of sacrifice to build new things.
No one else was on this ship, except a crew of three in the piloting compartment. There were many tubes filled with the dead of prior accidents and a battle they had fought. He had avoided collecting details, fighting the urge to be sympathetic toward people he might have to destroy.
“Dimion,” he murmured into the device given to him by Billy Maidenshore. It was another two-band vocal broadcaster, they said, focused to so narrow a frequency that only Orions could detect it. “Dimion . . . Dimion . . .”
“Avedon.” Dimion’s voice was broken and faint, but welcome.
“Are you hiding successfully?”
“Yes, Avedon. We have hidden and are shut down, as you ordered.”
“Restrict all movements until the Blind. Maidenshore was right. They can detect very little then.”
“Have you succeeded? Are they turning back now that they know about Kauld?”
“They have ‘embraced the challenge.’ ”
“Embraced it? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. For Blood, challenge has always meant struggle and suffering. Who chooses to struggle? Suffer? They crave excitement! It’s a venture into the insane.”
“Who makes such a decision? Couldn’t you change his mind away from such a path?”
“The leader,” Shucorion supplied. “A general named Kirk. I even asked that they share their food with all my men, hoping he would feel the pinch of struggle. These people consider it immoral to let others starve even as you starve yourself. They accepted, but still Kirk will not turn back. Somehow he makes them believe that they can go on. What kind of man is this? No matter what terror rises before him, he orders them onward! And they do what he says. He’s ahead—he will get to that planet well before Vellyngaith at this rate.”
Dimion was suddenly silent. Understandable—he didn’t know whether to agree or not, why it should be a bad thing for the Kauld fortress to be halted before it was begun. Shucorion had cautiously kept from explaining it to him. A mistake perhaps. Poor Dimion deserved trust, yet that would be an unnecessary risk.
The silence hurt them both. I will explain all this to you soon, old friend. Keep believing in me until then.
“I’m willing to sacrifice myself,” Shucorion began again, “and all I control to make sure Vellyngaith builds that fortress and moves his forces there. As for these Federation people, I would rather they turn around. If Kirk wanted to help his people, he would take them home!”
“What is it like there, Avedon?”
“You should see it all! They have enormous ships, filled with food and comfort, yet they spend time in leisure and sleep many hours every day when they could be learning or working. How did they build all this, wasting so much time? Imagine having time!”
“I can’t imagine liking it. Have you discovered anything we can use? Found any of their secrets?”
Shucorion rubbed his bruised face, touching sore spots he had inflicted himself. “They keep no secrets. It’s pointless to spy on them. They tell everything freely. The problem becomes figuring out which is the better knowledge.”
He paused to think, and felt for a moment that the cubicle was spinning around him, that he was about to be flung into space and that he must hang on tightly.
“I must stop them from taking that planet before Vellyngaith establishes his fortress and moves his forces there. We have the chance, Dimion, to maneuver Federation into seeing Kauld as enemies. Then Kauld will be forced to deplete themselves against Federation, instead of Blood having to do it.”
He paused, and closed his eyes. The image of success lingered in his mind, just out of reach. Did he dare to hope? To stretch out his hand for the prize?
As if speaking to himself, he murmured, “I am truly chosen. I will throw all of Federation and all those people and ships into the pit, if I must, to save mine. For the first time we have a chance for things to go our way. We always barely survived—we never won. This time we have a chance to win!”
His voice echoed briefly through the huge chambers of the ship of mourning.
“If you cannot change the minds of the people,” Dimion attempted, somewhat hesitantly, “perhaps you can change the mind of this general.”
Shucorion slumped sideward, to lean against the cubicle wall. How naive Dimion could be at times. “Change the mind of Kirk . . . I see great experience in him. He is strong in his mind.”
“Kill him, then?”
“No,” he decided. “Death in space is a nightmare . . . I regret to cause it.”
“What are you ordering, Avedon? What about you and our men? How can you come back—”
“Forget about us, Dimion. None of us is important. You have only one concern now. Think about the work and do it. You must summon Vellyngaith. Give him the information from the Orion ships that Maidenshore said would tell about Federation weapons and tactics. You and our Blood navigators must swallow your meal of disgust and lead the Kauld battlefleet. You must come here, to me. When you find us, you must destroy everything.”
“Avedon . . . what about Maidenshore and the Orions?”
“I don’t care about them,” Shucorion said. “I care only about what must happen in our favor. All Kauld will not have us for dinner because they are the beast and we are the bird. Bring Vellyngaith, and strike. Strike! Annihilate the Federation fleet!”
Chapter Twenty-three
Enterprise
Captain’s quarters, Gamma Night
HE’D PUT ASIDE the title of admiral, yet that was what he again must be. A captain
’s mantle had not protected him from the conflagration of responsibilities involved in moving a fleet of ships from here to there. Though Governor Pardonnet thought James Kirk wanted, hoped, connived to micromanage every detail, in fact Kirk had hoped to avoid just that. He had seized C and C of operations before the Expedition embarked, hoping to make things start out smoothly so they’d continue to run smoothly all the way across the gulf of space into unknown tracts. His hopes had been early dashed. No mission ever went perfectly, but he’d hoped . . .
Now those nagging awarenesses were playing out. Like it or not, he was Admiral Kirk again in everything but name. More than seventy ships lay beneath his hand, caught to him by invisible strings that made up the scaffold of command, slowly strangling him from deep within. McCoy had been right—he was holding in that hand the lives of sixty-four thousand civilians and the future of Federation influence in the galaxy. He loathed the former, was devoted to the latter. More Federation than less.
He flinched like a teenager stealing somebody else’s homework when Spock hurried into his quarters without even keying the door chime. Must be important. Spock was scrupulously courteous.
“Captain—” the Vulcan urgently began, then was forced to pause when McCoy jogged in before the door closed.
The doctor quickly said, “I’m here too! Go ahead, Spock, I want to hear this.”
Spock actually seemed glad that McCoy had barged in. “Mr. Chekov and I have the results of our analysis of the bombardment patterns and residue on the barges. Much of it is indeed alien, unrecognized by the computer—”
“Much of it?” Kirk asked. “How much of it?”
This time both eyebrows went up. “Sixty-nine percent, sir.”
Kirk swiveled his chair away from his desk to let Spock slip a computer cartridge into the desktop unit and cue up the information. “What’s the additional thirty-one percent?”
